Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

MS Patents IM Feature Used Since At Least 1996

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the uspto's-perverse-incentives dept.

splorp! writes "Once again, a company is patenting a feature that another company implemented years before. C|Net's News.com reports that patent no. 6,631,412 grants Microsoft the rights to 'an instant messaging feature that notifies users when the person they are communicating with is typing a message.' Excuse me? Does anyone remember Powwow (now defunct)? I remember using that one back in '96 and it alerted the other people to whom you were chatting that you were typing. Or, alternately, it allowed you to SEE the other people typing in real time. Yeah, Powwow is gone, now, but that doesn't mean those features never existed."

6 of 524 comments (clear)

  1. Even older prior art by Gzip+Christ · · Score: 5, Funny
    What about the UNIX "talk" command? That command allows you to see what the other person is typing in real time and it's been around forever. I wouldn't be surprised if there were cave paintings showing our ancestors using "talk" to tell their buddies how the wooly mammoth hunt was going.


    --------
    The fake Gzip Christ isn't not user number ~0xA6CA7

    1. Re:Even older prior art by TheFairElf · · Score: 3, Funny

      ..to tell their buddies how the wooly mammoth hunt was going

      That is no way of referring to RMS

    2. Re:Even older prior art by NickFitz · · Score: 3, Funny
      The OSS community needs a forum for debunking these patent applications. One where the USPTO trusts it for prior art inspections.

      Now that's a good idea. Have you thought of patenting it? ;-)

      --
      Using HTML in email is like putting sound effects on your phone calls. Just say <strong>no</strong>.
  2. More text than code by javatips · · Score: 5, Funny

    What I find amusing is that it probably took a lot more time filling for this patent than implement the feature.

    One must be very creative to describe such a simple feature in so many pages of text!

  3. Re:Don't forget by JohnHegarty · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...AOL and Yahoo were not available for comment.

    but they were typing a responce...

    --
    Cruise TT
  4. Re:Don't forget (actually) by vasqzr · · Score: 5, Funny


    I remember it distinctly because my girlfriend's Yahoo wasn't working

    Don't worry, it happens to everyone.